About a quarter of Rockford homes had received their new, 32-gallon recycling bins at last week’s end. And those with the new bins have put them to use. Rock River Disposal, the company contracted to haul the city’s curbside trash and recycling, reports a 30 percent increase in total tons of materials recycled by those with new bins. Delivery of the bins began about a month ago.

“This is working,” said John Lichty, president and CEO of Rock River Environmental Services, parent company of Rock River Disposal.

The bigger bins — which replace the 18-gallon blue boxes — were intended to help boost the city’s recycling rate, which has lagged behind the national average. The new, cylindrical bins have a lid to keep paper and recyclables from blowing away on trash day.

“If you look on garbage day, the blue containers are out there. There’s more people participating,” Lichty said. “We’ve made it convenient, we’ve given them a larger capacity and we’ve put a cover on it, and people seem to be responding.”

The Illinois Recycling Association has previously said that larger bins often lead to more recycling because of people’s tendency to fill the size of the container they’re given. Other communities that have made the switch have seen similar results. Joliet, for example, saw a 40 percent increase in recycling after switching to 96-gallon toters in 2011.

Rock River Disposal has delivered bins to almost 14,000 of the 51,329 Rockford homes scheduled to receive the containers. Last week, it began delivering to residents who have their trash collected on Thursdays. Those deliveries continue this week. The company delivers roughly 1,000 bins per day. The company estimates Thursday deliveries will be completed in about two weeks. Once the Thursday collection receives its bins, they will move on to delivering to those who have trash hauled on Mondays.